The present invention relates generally to stacked electrical circuits, and more particularly, to an improved arrangement for aligning and electrically interconnecting stacked electrical circuit boards when using a wire button contact system.
Previously, wire button contact approaches used to interconnect multiple stacked circuit boards were plagued with problems associated with dislodged or contaminated wire button contacts. This is because the wire button contacts protruded from the surface of its spacer/carrier, thus exposing it to damage. Prior techniques for aligning stacked printed wiring boards utilize a pin and through hole design. For example, U. S. Pat. No. 4,922,381 discloses a typical three-dimensional stacked printed wiring board arrangement. The pin and through hole alignment technique requires valuable internal routing area that is particularly wasteful in light of current electronic circuit miniaturization objectives. The pin and through hole alignment technique also requires precisely located through holes which, significantly increases manufacturing costs of the circuit board, which is especially true if the circuit board is made of ceramic.
Thus, it would be advantageous to have an electrical interconnect system for stacked circuit boards which employs wire button interconnects that do not become dislodged or contaminated. It would also be advantageous to have an electrical interconnection system which provides assembly-to-assembly alignment of multiple stacked circuit boards and eliminates the need for alignment through holes, maximizes internal routing area, and reduces cost of the assembled boards
Accordingly, it is an objective of the present invention to provide for improved stacked electrical circuit assemblies through a protected wire button contact system. It is a further objective of the present invention to provide for stacked electrical circuit assemblies whose input/output pads are aligned without additional or external alignment apparatus.